E3 2007: Halo Wars First Look

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The fight continues in 2008.

By Erik Brudvig

Ensemble Studios spent the first six months out of the two and a half years of work on Halo Wars on the controls. If the development studio can't get it right after building the game from the ground up and spending that much time on the controls, we may as well give up on the RTS genre on consoles. But we won't just yet. Halo Wars offers hope.

Halo Wars picks up 20 years prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. We asked if that means there are only two playable races, as presumably the humans have not yet encountered the Flood. To that, we were given the somewhat cryptic response that no humans that we know of have encountered any other alien races or the Flood at this point. Perhaps a hidden third playable race will yet be revealed. In any event, the game follows the UNSC support ship Spirit of Fire, its crew, and Serena the shipboard AI through its trials and tribulations while fighting the Covenant.

Though our demo was rather brief, it did provide a good chunk of info and show just how far along Halo Wars is. The in-game presentation began with a Pelican dropping into a river valley accompanied by two Hulks (Hawks?), a new light aircraft unit. The Pelican soared right into a prefabricated base and we were given a brief tour of the facilities. Amongst the buildings we spotted a missile silo, supply depot, command center, troop doing push-ups, and vehicle assembly line.

Now that we were in the game itself, we also got a look at how the game controls thanks to the on-screen HUD, a feature that may have only displayed the controls as part of the demo which may not exist in the final game. The d-pad is used for quickly getting around the map with shortcuts. The down button was marked flares, used for hopping to marks laid out by the player. Left is marked "goto" and is used to quickly jump back to your base. Hit it again and you'll warp back to the same place you just left from on the battlefield. Up is for groups and appears to be used for quickly cycling between groups.

Selecting units is done primarily with the A Button. Tap it once over a group to select it. Double tap it to select all of one unit type. Hold it down and a circle will grow which can be swept around to paint a selection path. If you just want to select all units, the Left Bumper will do the trick. Once you have your units selected, the X Button is used to direct them. Tap X around the map and you'll lay out a series of waypoints for the units to follow. B is used to unselect things and the Y Button is used for your powers. The final button on display was the Right Bumper which will command your units to dig in.

We asked just how much interaction with the environment there will be and whether we'll be able to order units to hide behind pieces of debris or bunker down in buildings. The answer we got was a simple "yes." Environmental interaction is a big part of Halo Wars. No boarding vehicles, but a lot of interaction.

Case in point: The battle demo that came next. After training a few units of marines (no Spartans, though they are in the game), the group was taken out for a fight. After lobbing a few frag grenades and laying down some shots on a few troops of Grunts led by Elites, the small mass of infantry was wiped out. Time to head back to base for a second attack. This battle would be led by Warthogs, which are built using a circle menu system. We also saw Scorpions and Wolverines ready to be queued up in the vehicle factory. The Warthogs animate just like they do in Halo with fish tails and lots of air off of small jumps. The group simply drove over the Elites and Grunts (a few of which had their methane tanks popped, causing them to go flying through the air), and then hopped over a chasm to continue of to the big fight. It's all physics based, and the Ensemble Studios guys said they've seen Grunts explode on one side of the map only to plop down in the middle of their base on the other side.

The base was guarded by Banshees, Elites, and Grunts. Warthogs aren't so hot against Banshees, so a few AA Wolverines were called in. To continue the cat and mouse game, the Covenant brought in Ghosts. In turn, the USNC brought Scorpions to the battle and made short work of the light vehicles. Then came the Scarab. It has "anti-everything" lasers that destroyed every human vehicle in no time flat, even with everyone aiming every gun and rocket at it. The demo ended when the humans called in an orbital bombardment power. This went to an overhead target as a satellite honed in on the exact location before unleashing a torrent of explosions. Nobody in the area, be they friend or foe, could survive.

It's tough to tell how Halo Wars will end up playing from such a short demo as balance is such a big part of RTS success. All of the ground work looks good, though. The lighting effects and textures are quite good for a game that isn't due out until 2008. The best part, though, was the animations which made the whole feel of the game distinctly Halo. The group also confirmed to us that there would be co-op play through Xbox Live, further adding to the impression that the team knows what Halo fans want. Things are definitely looking promising on the console RTS front.